Abe Says Japan Wants Apology for South Korean Remarks on Emperor
- Premier calls lawmaker’s remarks ‘extremely inappropriate’
- Lawmaker urged emperor to apologize for father’s ‘war crimes’
This article is for subscribers only.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denounced a top South Korean lawmaker’s comments about the Japanese emperor as “extremely inappropriate,” ratcheting up already-high tensions between the two neighbors.
Abe told parliament Tuesday that Japan asked South Korea to apologize for National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang’s remarks last week describing Emperor Akihito as “the son of the main culprit of war crimes.” Moon made the statement in a Bloomberg interview Thursday in which he urged an imperial apology to resolve a dispute over the colonial-era trafficking of Korean women to work in Japanese military brothels.